


The Peaceful Mordor AU

by Jenny_Islander



Series: Lord of the Rings Stories I'm Not Writing [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Free Orcs, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenny_Islander/pseuds/Jenny_Islander
Summary: This is a series of Watsonian articles about a peaceful Mordor that are free for anyone to use as "The Back of the Book."  In this AU, I feign, Mordor belongs to surviving Orcs and so on, who live there in peace and rule themselves.
Series: Lord of the Rings Stories I'm Not Writing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943518
Kudos: 8





	1. Concerning the Climes of Mordor

**Author's Note:**

> Doylian note: I used Turkmenistan as a physical model for the climate of Mordor.

Spring in Mordor is brief, with small rains. The summer heat begins in May, growing greater until July, then abating little by little until September. The hottest days feel rather like standing near a baker's oven with the door open. In summertime, therefore, people who can go out by day rise at earliest light, when a Tark still needs a lantern to get about. They work until noon, then rest for two hours or so, perhaps sleeping, perhaps playing at dice or some other amusement that still allows for taking one's ease. Then they turn to work again until well after sundown. The heat of the day flows away quickly, leaving a pleasant coolness in the air; if there is a fine moon, many forego the first sleep to enjoy it. However, when the wind blows, dust rises in great clouds from the dry earth, and it is prudent to wrap one's whole head in gauze to keep it off. Sometimes the heat breaks in a thunderstorm that may wear itself out in dry lightning or drop welcome rain. Autumn is as brief as spring: the wind cools, the nights become chill, and then the winter rains begin. They call this season "the rains," but if it rains more than one day in a week that is unusual. But the olvar of Mordor need no more than this.

The great mountain-walls of Mordor have their own seasons. In the high valleys there is heavy snow every winter, and in the highest it never melts entirely, although cold milky water runs from beneath the snowbanks all summer long. The snow that does melt into the earth seeps ever lower to charge springs beneath the feet of the mountains. From both high sources and low, then, come the many shallow rivers that replenish the Nurnen from all sides. The upper tributaries do not fail even in the hottest part of summer, but the lower courses sink beneath the soil until the winter rains raise them again.

The breezes from the Nurnen soften the air and sweeten the soil of its shores, making Nurn somewhat like Ithilien. Here there is no summer drought nor winter snow, and the rain falls gently and often.


	2. Concerning the Peoples and Cities of Mordor

After the fall of Sauron and Saruman, some of the people who those Powers had brought into being wandered witless or lay down and died, because their minds had broken under the weight of their masters' will. Others fled in fear, turning bandit or starving in the wilderness. Some few were taken in by kindly folk and became farmers or fisherfolk among them. But those who remained in Mordor arose, and cast down any who would rule over them, and repelled any who sought their lives, and took the Black Gate for themselves. The tumult of those years is recorded in the annals of Minas Tirith; any who wish to read those accounts need only visit the Archive.

They sent messengers secretly throughout Rhovanion and Eriador, even during the days when none would grant them safe passage. These messengers carried the promise that all who sought peace within the mountain-walls should find it. After that many came to the Black Gate, or by hidden ways through the Ered Lithui, and settled throughout the land, so that there is hardly any wilderness left within the mountain-walls. 

Many, indeed, came, and most of them sought peace. Brigands and would-be tyrants were dealt with swiftly. Let the traveler be warned: they who will neither abide by the law nor make restitution for their crimes must depart Mordor or die.

The laws of Mordor, however, are light things for most people. They are concerned mainly with ensuring that all may live in peace and without privation. There is, for example, a strict law regarding the extent to which fur-bearing animals may be hunted, lest their numbers diminish, but none at all regarding who may wear the fur. Indeed there is no upper circle of nobility among them, the title of "Lord" (or "Boss," as the strongest part of a shield) being conferred only upon the one who is chosen to lead a ruling council that is itself chosen by the people who are ruled. This is by design: they will have no masters anymore. To this end, they do not permit slavery or land-rent. Nor do they let pass any remark that such a one ought to serve or rule another because of who they were born to. They call such talk excrement.

They who build up great wealth in Mordor do not live in great houses. Indeed there are no such things. Where former generations built in stone, or else hovels, the people now build in rammed earth mixed with straw, supporting floors and roofs with such polewood as can be found in the country, and plastering the outside. The roofs are flat, so that people may work and sleep there as well if they be not too large. Within there are benches, shelves, ovens, and all, also built of earth and clay so that they appear to grow from walls or floors. The walls within may also be plastered, or painted in any way that can be imagined. There are few windows, and those only to an inner courtyard, but the outer walls are pierced with narrow holes in a cunning pattern that freshens the air from without, unless the holes be stopped. A house built in this way looks as if it had grown immovably from the earth. But a team of Uruks with mattocks can knock it down in half a day, and build something else on its foundations within a week. And so it often happens.

All who live in or near a city own the land together. All may draw from the common wells and stores of fuel; all contribute as they may to stores of food, medicines, and plain cloth, from which all may take an equal share for their size. In the same way, all may have a house. One goes to the council and requests a home for so many people of such and such a height, with workshops or a public room or what have you as may be needed, and it is built. When there is no longer need for a house, it is knocked down and the rubble is carted away, leaving an open space that will sooner or later be filled with another house. This may happen even to a wealthy merchant, whose kin have gone away to live elsewhere: if a larger house must be built next to his, even for a cobbler, his must be made smaller.

The furnishings not built into a house might be rustic work made of rough wood and the bones of beasts, with straw mats on the floor; or they may be as fine as anything in the upper circles, the tables inlaid with colored woods from Far Harad and the walls hung with silk. But it is expected at all times that such things are to be picked up and moved. I have seen a procession of Goblins trooping along a street, with jars, dishes, blankets and all in their arms, and an Olog pacing solemnly behind with a bundle of cots and cabinets tied on her back like a poor widow's brushwood. The Goblins went into a brightly plastered little house that had just been finished, and came out again to escort the Olog to supper.

When the host is knee high to the guest, some place where they can both sit comfortably must be hired for the occasion. Farmers may sell whatever food is not needed for the common store to whoever they please, and much grain is sold to the brewers and distillers; these in turn apply to the council to build what are called public houses, and generally such a request is quickly granted. A public house is like and unlike a tavern. As we have in Gondor, there is a bar between the public rooms and the house-keeper's dwelling, but in Mordor it is made of plastered rammed earth, with a stone top; the main room smells of beer and spirits, but some parts of the floor are higher than others, so that little folk do not have to crane their necks and big folk do not have to stoop; and they do not have tables or stools, but use kibishes instead. A kibish is shaped like a bench without a back, and if the top be taken off it is a bench with a seat of woven cane or rope; but if the top be left on, it is a table; and if the top be taken off and a mattress thrown upon it, it is a cot; and the mattresses may also be cushions for those big folk who prefer to sit crosslegged on the floor. A well-run public house has a room full of kibishes and mattresses of all sizes that may be needed. Likewise, all food and drink is served in bowls: but some are big enough for a cupful, others for a potful. There is always less light in such a place than a Tark would prefer, because the people of that land do not need as much. Ask politely, and a light may be brought to you.

It is a strange and wonderful thing to sit in a public house, sipping at brown beer from a brown-glazed bowl, listening to the lute and the smallpipes, while there is a game that has to do with making patterns of little painted bone tiles going on across the room to the accompaniment of much cheerful raillery, and to be the only person in the place whose blood is not black.

I have never been frightened for my safety in such a place, nor in the streets afterward, where those who perforce must wake at night go about without lanterns. In a place where all may go clothed, fed, and sheltered without cost, there is little reason for street-robbery, although every land has its troublemakers. Those who become louts when they are in their cups will find themselves surrounded by persons their own size or larger, swiftly swaddled in blankets and mattresses, and deposited in a locked room where they may stay until sober--a very neat trick, and one I think worthy of imitation. Those who are louts when sober are free to fight with other louts in a place set aside for the purpose. This last is mainly a pastime of youths, and their elders look on indulgent condescension, for a time. If it goes on too long, the brawlers are apt to be treated with suspicion. Each city maintains a little army that is mainly concerned with pursuing bandits, guarding border entries, and repairing bridges and the like. They take pride in their readiness, but they do not want those who are eager to see blood.

To return to the topic of the common store: It is difficult to explain how so many are not expected to work, and yet the cities of Mordor are in good trim. If a house may be had for the asking, and furthermore there is wood for the hearth and food and drink and good plain cloth to be had at will, why then would there not be many shiftless layabouts consuming the increase of the worthy? Would not the farmers, who must work, rebel? But they do not. In truth there are people who spend all their waking hours in a public square playing backgammon. Some of them cannot work, while others will not: but that is considered to be no one's business. But most folk who can work turn their hands to something, as can be seen from the markets. These bustle day and night, because some people are sickened or slain by daylight. Such people, by the way, are accorded no disrespect for it, nor seen as evil because of it. Rather, they say, it is yet more proof that "that lot," by which they mean the great Powers whose rebellion nearly broke the world, were "nearly as clever as they thought they were," meaning in this case that the Great Enemy and his follower forgot to take precautions against strong light although one of their most vehement foes was Elbereth.

To return to the subject of markets: Cities in Mordor generally have two, each being laid out in the style of the markets of Umbar, that is, as great squares with rows of shops along the sides, the shop-keepers living above as they do in Minas Tirith (or behind, if they be very large). One market is used by day, the other by night; in the same way, the shop-keepers near one market go about by day, and near the other, by night. I have visited markets of both kinds, many times. At both you may find cords, laces, ribbons, and thread for hands of all sizes; pitchers that resemble a vase with a spout--the handle being made of boiled leather, and put on to the buyer's specifications; gray salt from Nurn, white from the dry lakes of the interior; beautifully made paper in stacks held down with polished stones; kites shaped like owls and moths, or like dragons and ships; musical instruments of many sorts, including some I have heard only there; vegetable soaps from Lithlad; dyestuffs brought on camelback from far away; green glass from Gorgoroth, blue from Umbar; baskets of any sort for any purpose; in short, much one might find in Minas Tirith and more besides. The grocers' stalls I have not touched on here, leaving that for another chapter. As in the public houses, the marketplaces are built on more than one level, some shop-fronts and stalls being set very high so that big folk may stand upright to bargain while little folk go up a flight of stairs to do the same. And there are always children running about or being bustled off to their lessons.

Amid all this industry there are, of course, those who dig and carry instead. Before I passed the Black Gate, I assumed, as many do, that this would be left to Trolls. But no one is considered to be the natural servant of another. Instead, those who take on the dirtiest work, such as collecting night soil, are accorded first privileges at the baths and laundries at the expense of the city coffers. In the same way, when there is such a harvest to be reaped that laborers must come from the city to help, cooks come along to provide food and drink for them from the common store. Some prefer such work because of the compensations, while others find that the compensations make the work bearable. And there are other reasons for a person to do crude labor when they can get the necessities of life without it. There was a lord of a city in the south of Mordor, who was famous for never losing his temper: but at the end of many a council meeting, he would politely inquire if a house were being demolished somewhere in the city at that moment, and hearing that there was, he would take his own mattock and turn to with a will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I decided that a bunch of Orcs and so forth who were dead set against anybody grinding them into the dirt or throwing them into battle ever again would try some radical social experiments. This isn't a utopia; if you think about it a bit, I'm sure you'll figure out at least one way for an unscrupulous person to game the system and one way for a vulnerable person to fall through the cracks. But this culture still succeeds at its stated goals more often than not.


	3. Concerning the Black Speech, and Certain Names

Hitherto I have spoken of the people of Mordor as Goblins, Uruks, and the like, or simply as "the people of Mordor." However, they are not the only peoples in Mordor. Tarks, as they call us, have lived in Nurn for many long-years, and others also dwell within the mountain-walls. When it is necessary to speak only of those whose hröar were formed by the Enemy Powers, they call themselves Haish. I could say that this is how to say "people" in the Black Speech, but that would not be true. There is not one single language that may be called the Black Speech. Each time the Enemy Powers were defeated or distracted, the Haish were scattered to settle where they might, some in peace, some not. The passage of long years changed the shape of their words, so that there are now perhaps half a dozen branches of the Black Speech that are as different from one another as Westron is from Umbaron.

After the great ingathering at the beginning of the Fourth Age, it became clear that a common tongue was needed. Disdaining the imposition of a single Black Speech at the expense of others as the sort of thing Sauron might have done had he not been distracted, the Haish instead use what the soldiers and slaves of the Dark Tower had already worked out for themselves: a dialect of Westron that is salted, as it were, with words from different branches of the Black Speech, and also with words from the languages of Rhûn and Harad. It has become so common indeed that some speak only that, although others have preserved their own Black Speech for use at home. But most accept "Haish" as their common name. In the same way, the generally accepted name for those parts of Mordor where the Haish have settled is Omin Haishû, the Land of the Haish. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I realized that I was going to need a lot of Black Speech for these articles, I went all the way back to the books to find some. Here is a summary from Tolkien's own works: https://folk.uib.no/hnohf/blackspeech.htm
> 
> Obviously this isn't enough! So I searched for expansions by others. And indeed I found about half a dozen of them, each with its own peculiarities of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar.
> 
> So I thought, _Why not,_ and made my own. The Black Speech presented here combines the lexicon and phonology from the above link with Hurrian vocabulary and grammar, with remaining gaps filled in mainly by Turkmen words. However, there are words of Mordorian Westron that come from much further away--even some from Nahuatl, as will be seen in a later chapter.
> 
> Pronunciation tips: the sounds r and l are said in the back of the mouth, which per Tolkien squicks Elves (to which I would reply that from the perspective of the Haish Elvish languages are nasal and hiss a lot). Also, the vowels i, u, û, o, a are roughly as in petite, put, flute, fought, and father, respectively.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not a linguist, philologist, or grammarian. Anybody who is actually fluent in one of the languages I borrowed from will notice that I borrowed them ineptly.


End file.
